Erick at ConfirmThem notes that Edith Clement is the only person on the "short list" of potential SCOTUS nominees to have a private meeting at the White House (at least as far as anyone can determine). Her's was sometime last week.

Clement is known to be pro-defendant in civil rights cases and is like OÂ’Connor on business issues, which means that conservatives will be pleased with her on those issues. There is no indication that Clement takes an expansive reading of the Commerce Clause and every indication that she does, in fact, take the opposite view.

Sources close to the White House tell me that the pick has been made, but are not giving me the name. Third party sources who would be among the first to know are saying that there is every indication that Clement is the pick. In fact, we are beginning to see conservatives get on board and shift from Edith B. Clement having too thin a papertrail to her being “with us.”

No one knows how Clement would vote on the ultimate issue — is abortion a medical procedure subject to state regulation or a constitutional right. I am told that, with the pressing issues currently headed to the court, i.e. partial birth abortion, parental notification, 24 hour waiting periods, the Solomon Amendment, etc. — conservatives do not need to worry about Clement, they need to worry about Justice Kennedy and whether he will continue heading left.

I have been told by multiple parties that, though we know little about Judge Clement’s leanings on social issues, we should make no mistake that her family background is conservative and that her husband is a “loyal” conservative.

Sounds like if Clement is the choice, we'll see moonbat Senator Ted "Jabba The Drunk" Kennedy (Beefeater's-MA) turning purple in the face on CNN shortly after the President's speech.

That would be something to see.

We're still on for Bush's announcement at 9 tonight. Be there. Aloha.

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Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Clement

Current scuttlebutt is that the choice will be Fifth Circut Judge Edith Clement from New Orleans.

Clement is viewed as more moderate than many conservatives would like, perhaps to avoid an almost inevitable partisan fight in the US Senate over her confirmation. But we'll have to see.

Let the games begin.

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Paul from Wizbang, after posting a piece of biting satire on the Ebonics fluff yesterday, is having to defend himself from charges of racism this morning.

What David fails to understand is this:
When a I say (in jest) that black kids are too stupid to learn english it is "hate speech." When a liberal says it for real they are an educator.

Make no doubt about it. The California liberals are telling black kids they are too stupid to learn english. -- They just do it in a politically correct way.

You are a disgusting coward who would not dare utter those words, satire or no, in the presence of black people, or for that matter, decent people of any race or creed.

So picking your cotton is out of the question, but god help you if you ever make the mistake of spouting your childish and racist ideology in public.

Just damn.

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Here we go again.

A batch of lazy educators who aren't willing to teach students proper English are dumbing down the curriculum by teaching urban street slang as if it were some kind of "language" as opposed to the vernacular it truly is.

Mary Texeira, a sociology professor at Cal State San Bernardino, suggested that including Ebonics in the program would be beneficial for students.

"Ebonics is a different language, it's not slang as many believe,' Texeira said. "For many of these students Ebonics is their language, and it should be considered a foreign language. These students should be taught like other students who speak a foreign language.'

"There are African Americans who do not agree with me. They say that (black students) are lazy and that they need to learn to talk,' Texeira said.

When I grew up, teachers would demand that we, as students, speak in proper English. We certainly used slang with our friends on the playground and outside the classroom, but not in class. And we never would dare to use it in front of our parents or grandparents.

The politically correct-feel good mindset that has permeated our society allows a "dumbing down" of all aspects of life in order to placate those who refuse to take responsibility and work for what needs to be done.

Teaching "ebonics" -- urban slang -- will not provide a means for an individual to acquire a job, it will not help him maintain a living, it will not provide an individual with the skills necessary to compete in an academic setting, let alone a professional setting. It does absolutely nothing positive for the individuals that it is taught to. On the contrary, it will hinder individuals who are trying to learn to use contemporary standard English properly. It will provide a crutch for individuals who too lazy to do what is necessary to teach standard English in the nation's schools.

We already have ESL (English as a Second Language) classes for native Spanish speakers. What are these people going to ask for next, ESL classes for people who are born here and cannot learn English to begin with?

This measure is foolish, and a complete waste of resources, talent, effort, energy and time. It should be soundly denounced and eliminated from the San Bernadino schools.

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Marc Xavier takes a cold look at the history and state of black culture at Very Small Doses. A lot of people may not like some of what he has to say though.

In the turbid sojourn that weÂ’ve made in the past 400 or so, African Americans have endured a historical experience unlike any other ethnicity in this country. When my ancestors were brought over here from Africa, they were spread across the New World with little regard to family ties or tribal affiliation. It was in this process that we originally lost our culture.

Our customs, our ideas and our worldviews were gradually smothered in a manner not dissimilar to what the Babylonians tried to do to the Jews during the Captivity. By breaking up our family units and moving us around to the highest bidder, our ability to pass on the building blocks of our culture to the next generation was lost. ItÂ’s like what the good Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once said: "The Negro is an American, we know nothing of Africa."

Time passed, we lost even our languages and we learned to speak English. The succeeding generations of slaves born in captivity increasingly had no recollection of the Old World we came from. ItÂ’s a horrible thing to be robbed of oneÂ’s identity like that, but even more so because we had no way of even knowing what we had lost of ourselves. But itÂ’s a testament to my ancestors that they nonetheless persevered, even building a new culture.

most young black men see themselves in an intractable socio-economic quagmire and needlessly carry the weight of generations of past wrongs on their shoulders. It appears to me that many African Americans feel emasculated about these wrongs of the past, and in order to prove ourselves our culture demands that we act in a manner to show that we are a force to be reckoned with. Though lacking the calm self-assuredness of one who truly knows our history, we overcompensate by behaving hyper-masculine, or “hard” as the term is used. Violence is the inevitable result.

I have to agree with him; though many folks will find other reasons to work with. Many people refuse to deal with taking personal responsibility for their actions, instead pointing to some sort of "generational post-traumatic" disorder or some other such gobbly-de-gook.

Is there an easy answer? No; but with time, effort, energy and introspection, progress can be made. There's no reason not to.

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Josh Marshall has boiled the entire sordid Plame/CIA affair down to a basic truism: Joe Wilson's a liar.

The Democrats have latched onto Wilson's lies, because they figure to knock off the percieved power behind the throne. And they're looking more and more stupid by the day as a result.

Joe Wilson's a liar. Plame's covert status wasn't protected well by the CIA. It was just a short phone call. Rove really wanted to speak about welfare reform. Wilson said Cheney sent him to Africa. Plame sent Wilson to Africa. Rove leaked Plame's identity in the interests of good journalism. Wilson went on too many TV shows.

BLITZER: But the other argument that's been made against you is that you've sought to capitalize on this extravaganza, having that photo shoot with your wife, who was a clandestine officer of the CIA, and that you've tried to enrich yourself writing this book and all of that.

What do you make of those accusations, which are serious accusations, as you know, that have been leveled against you.

WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.

BLITZER: But she hadn't been a clandestine officer for some time before that?

WILSON: That's not anything that I can talk about. And, indeed, I'll go back to what I said earlier, the CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed, and that's why they referred it to the Justice Department.

I understand the visceral hatred that liberals feel for Karl Rove and George W. Bush. I really do. But this game of charades they are playing really makes them look bad.

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Mariah Carey, still under the mistaken impression that she knows how to act, blames the 9/11 attacks for the poor showing that her movie Glitter had at the box office in 2001.

“I released it around September 11, 2001,” the singer told Swiss newspaper Sonntags Zeitung as translated on fan site MariahDaily. “The talk shows needed something to distract from 9/11. I became a punching bag. I was so successful that they tore me down because my album was at number 2 instead of number 1. The media was laughing at me and attacked me.” Additionally, Mariah also said that the movie was just too cutting-edge for it’s own good. “‘Glitter’ was ahead of its time,” she explained. “Today it’s ‘in’ to make 80’s music.”

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Bassam Khalaf, who is known as the Arabic Assassin on his unreleased rap CD, "Terror Alert," has lyrics that glorify the 9/11 hijackers, and describes himself as a "crazy, suicidal Arabic ... equipped with bombs."

And until last week, he screened luggage passing through Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.

"I've been screening your bags for the past six months, and you don't even know it," said Khalaf, who also said Thursday that he is not really a terrorist and that his rhymes are exaggerations meant to gain publicity.

An Internet search of Khalaf's name brings up Web sites that feature his obscene, violent and misogynistic raps that threaten to fly a plane into a building on Sept. 11, 2005.

Khalaf, 21, was hired on Jan. 16 and fired July 7, according to a TSA termination letter that cited his "authorship of songs which applaud the efforts of the terrorists on September 11th, encourage and warn of future acts of terrorism by you, discuss at length and in grave and alarming detail various criminal acts you intend to commit, state your belief that the U.S. government should be overthrown, and finally warn that others will die on September 11, 2005."

Then again, behind this, the Arabic Assassin's CD (whenever it gets released) will probably sell out.

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White House reporters Terry Moran, David Gregory and John Roberts (ABC, NBC & CBS, respectively), along with the rest of the White House press corps smell blood in the water regarding Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and his role in the Plame/CIA affair. They have become very aggressive with their questioning behind a White House statement supporting Rove.

During yesterday's White House press conference yesterday, the trio pelted White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan with questions about Rove. McClellan, for his part, tried to parry and defend, but it wasn't pretty.

Want an example? Let's go to the audio tape...

Q: Let me -- let me just do what you did a few moments ago and step back from the context of the investigation to the President's agenda. Does Karl Rove, with all the attention being paid to him now, become a liability to the President, an impediment to his pushing his agenda?

MR. McCLELLAN: See, you're asking all these context in -- all these questions in the context of the news reports relating to an investigation --

Q: I'm talking about it now in the larger sense of Rove being the Deputy Chief of Staff.

MR. McCLELLAN: We're continuing to move forward on our agenda, and the -- we're on the verge of accomplishing some very big things when it comes to the agenda. And --

Q: But is Karl Rove an impediment now, with all this attention distracting from that push on your agenda?

MR. McCLELLAN: Everybody who is working here is helping us to advance the agenda, and that includes Karl in a very big way.

Q: Has he apologized to you for telling you he is not involved?

MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, I'm not going to get into any private discussions.

Q: He put you on the spot. He put your credibility on the line.

MR. McCLELLAN: And, Helen, I appreciate you all wanting to move forward and find the facts relating to this investigation. I want to know all the facts relating to the investigation.

Q: You people are on the record, one quote after another.

MR. McCLELLAN: The President wants to get to the bottom of it. And it's just not appropriate. If you'll remember back two years ago, or almost two years ago, I did draw a line and I said, we're just not going to get into commenting on --

Q: You also made comments in defending Mr. Rove.

MR. McCLELLAN: We're just not going to get into commenting on an investigation that continues. And I think you've heard me explain why I'm not going to do that. I do want to talk about this --

Q: Do you regret putting yourself out on a limb, Scott?

MR. McCLELLAN: I do want to talk about this, and we will talk about it once the investigation is complete.

Q: Do you regret what you said in 2003?

Bottom line, there's nothing new. Rove came clean months ago, while testifying to a grand jury. Time confirmed that Rove was one of Matthew Cooper's sources from when he disclosed Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA employee.

Plame was a CIA employee, period. According to noted Bush-basher, Joe Wilson, Plame was a CIA agent, and the press has siezed upon this notion, but there is no evidence supporting it, save Wilson's rants. And if she wasn't covert, there was no crime.

But don't confuse the press -- or the Democrats -- with the facts. They think they've got something here.

And they're going to act like petulant children throwing a tantrum until they get the White House to give them what they want: Karl Rove's head on a platter. After all, they think that Rove is the solitary eeeevil mastermind behind the Bush presidency. They figure they get Rove, then Bush is easy pickings.

But the picture is never as clear as it seems, is it?

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Men's News Daily columnist Bob Parks fires back at Julian Bond's annual anti-conservative whine-fest in his new column.

Parks points out that despite Bond's incessant ranting, the NAACP hasn't done much of note lately.

And while continuing the fight is admirable, it would seem the present-day NAACP is fighting more for relevance since the message of “blame Republican whitey” is starting to fall on deaf ears, and it would appear the only people who will lose out are the very people who draw on an NAACP paycheck.

And as far as widespread discrimination goes, what has the NAACP fixed lately...?

Bond assumes that all black people are stupid and if he just recites the approved script from the DNC, he'll continue to receive the prominence he craves, and the paycheck he's grown accustomed to.

As long as black people attend the lousy public schools in the hood managed by Democrats and teacher's unions, listen to rap music created by Hollywood and New York liberals that steals the souls of their young listeners, have an overwhelming out-of-wedlock birthrate that makes a government social worker drool, there will be no solutions offered from people like Julian Bond.

It's definitely worth a look this morning.

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Donald Trump, supposedly disappointed with the outcomes of the past couple of seasons of the NBC hit The Apprentice, is contemplating some potentially controversial changes to the format of the teams on the show.

Among the proposals: pitting a team of African-American contestants against a team of all-white players.

“Whether people like that idea or not, it is somewhat reflective of our very vicious world,” according to Trump. “But needless to say, not everybody thinks it’s a good idea.”

I don't know that NBC will go along with The Donald's proposal -- they just watched ABC nix airing their controversial reality series Welcome To The Neighborhood before airing a single episode. The ABC show would have given three conservative white families the power to decide which diversely liberal family would be able to move into a house in their cul-de-sac.

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"You Will Fail" is from London mayor Ken Livingstone's quote after the London terror attacks late last week.

They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They donÂ’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.

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USA Today columnist Julianne Malveaux, speaking on Sean Hannity's nationally syndicated radio program yesterday, called the United States a "terrorist nation" and President George W. Bush a "terrorist."

During the interview, moonbat Malveaux began ranting about past problems in this nation, including the 1921 mass murder and arson that killed more than 300 blacks in Tulsa, OK.

"Terrorism in the United States is as old as we are. You want me to give you a litany of terrorism? You want me to start with what's happened to the Indian population? You want to go on to what happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921?"

"C'mon now, Sean," Malveaux told Hannity. "We are terrorists."

Asked point-blank if the U.S. was a "terrorist nation," Malveaux shot back: "Oh, Absolutely."

Asked if America was "a good country," Malveaux responded tersely, "We're a country." Pressed on why she omitted the adjective "good," she replied: "I can't answer that. I think we have some good and I think we have some evil."

As the interview was winding up, Malveaux went on a tear about the Iraq war and "the weapons of mass distraction."

"You know they weren't there. I know they weren't there," she told Hannity. "George W. Bush is evil. He is a terrorist. He is evil. He is arrogant. And he is out of control."

Moreover, if this is such a terrible place, why, oh why are you livng here?

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After word emerged over the weekend that Bush White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove is the confidential source of the information that resulted in the release of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA employee, many critics complained that little attention was being paid to the story.

Now word has come down that the New York Times is planning a full-court press against Rove, with a front page spread in Tuesday's editions that ultimtely demands Rove's ouster.

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In an insult that isn't completely original (I've been hearing folks -- including my dad -- use the term for several years), Senator Hillary Clinton (Cthulhu-NY) took time out of a speech in Colorado yesterday to compare President George W. Bush to Mad Magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman.

"I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington," Clinton said during the inaugural Aspen Ideas Festival, organized by the Aspen Institute, a non-partisan think tank.

The former first lady drew a laugh from the crowd when she described Bush's attitude toward tough issues with Neuman's catch phrase: "What, me worry?"

Back in New York, Clinton was asked during a stop in Rochester if she felt some people might be offended by her comparing the president to Alfred E. Neuman.

"That is for people to decide, but I think if you look at the facts, the real concerns of the American public are not being addressed."

Asked if Bush had a "what-me-worry" attitude, she said, "I think Washington does."

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NAACP Chairman Julian Bond opened the NAACP's national convention in Milwaukee as he has other such gatherings in the past -- by attacking George W. Bush and other conservatives.

The NAACP's national confab got underway yesterday in Milwaukee. Bond took the opportunity to take swipes at Bush and others, of course, reserving special venom for black conservatives.

Bond opened with an attack, saying, "Milwaukee is the home of beer, of brats and the Bradley Foundation," and blasting Bush for failing to appear at the NAACP's annual convention for the fifth straight year.

Bond explained his reference to the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation later in the speech, saying it is among entities that fund what he called "fraudulent" civil rights organizations.

He charged that the organizations appear to back civil rights but push school vouchers, use legal means to assault affirmative action and try to redraw political boundaries in hopes of preventing people of color from being elected to office.

Such organizations have had black "hucksters" on their payrolls for 20 years, said Bond to thunderous applause.

"Like ventriloquist dummies, they speak in their puppet master's voice, but we can see his lips moving," he said.

Similarly, Bond fired at organizations that have tried to "seduce black clergy" to conservative causes and criticized what he said is an attempt by the Bush administration to replace vital public welfare programs with faith-based organizations.

He gave special importance to the continuing battle over Bush's judicial nominees, especially a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, saying the high court needs another independent-minded justice like her. Too many Bush nominees to federal judgeships have made rulings that hurt the civil rights movement, he said, calling newly named federal appeals court judge Janice Rogers Brown "the female Clarence Thomas."

The former Democratic Georgia state senator blasted the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate for failing to hold a roll call vote on a resolution apologizing for failing to enact an anti-lynching law first proposed 105 years ago. He named eight Republican senators who did not co-sponsor the resolution, saying, "If a United States senator in 2005 cannot apologize for that, what outrage is deserving of an apology?"

Targeting the Bush administration, Bond said it was "outsourcing torture" by sending terrorism suspects to foreign lands and backing economic policies that have created "an ownership society, where you're really on your own."

"They profess to being true believers, but they're really true deceivers," he said.

It's nice to know that his priorities are "in order" -- helping communities overcome social ills is not important in his mind. After all, he's more concerned about partisan politics.

Bond's statements continued to skirt the partisan line that has threatened to invite additional scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service over the past several years. The NAACP has been placed under a magnifying glass by the IRS regarding it's tax exempt status. Ongoing investigations have examined whether or not the NAACP is a partisan organization, contrary to their stated non-partisan goals.

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Florida Governor Jeb Bush, while talking about the feeling of woe had by residents of the Florida Panhandle with multiple hurricanes targeting that portion of the state:

``I think there is a legitimate feeling, 'Why me? What did I do wrong?''' Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said.

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Underneath their lead headline about the approach of Hurricane Dennis, ABC News, in their infinte wisdom, has bannered a headline that reads, "Global Warming To Intensify Hurricane Fury," which, of course, would lead one to believe -- at least according to the "learned opinion" of ABC News -- that global warming is responsible for the ferocity of Hurricane Dennis, and it hitting the same area devestated by Hurricane Ivan last summer.

Once you pull the story up, you see that it's an add-on piece that helps to bolster their position that global warming will wreak havoc over the world's weather -- a position that not all scientists find valid, contrary to what many in the media would have us believe.

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Just got word that I'm going to be on The O'Reilly Factor tonight at 8 on Fox News Channel.

We'll be talking about a story from the first part of this week.

Overnight Monday night, a group of youngsters tossed rocks at a tanker truck, and one enterprising kid lobbed a bottle rocket into the cab of the truck. The tanker truck, carrying 7500 pounds of diesel fuel, went off the road and overturned. The driver was seriously injured.

Atlanta Police evacuated the Bankhead Courts housing project as a precaution, as there were fears of an explosion from the diesel fuel.

Police have arrested and charged an 18 year-old man with tossing the bottle-rocket, and they are close (at least in their words) to apprehending a second individual in the case.

The question - as O'Reilly's producer put it to me - is whether crime is out of control in Atlanta.

I told him that it wasn't, and that crime in Atlanta is no better nor worse than any other urban area of the country. This was the act of kids who had no business out at 2 in the morning, regardless of the notion of it being the night of the fourth of July. They were wrong, and should be punished.

The other point brought out by the producer - and presumably one that O'Reilly wants to pursue - is whether or not an increase in crime (there's that notion again) can be tied to the poor performance of the Fulton County DA, Paul Howard.

Howard, as far as I'm concerned, is an embarrassment. He has no business in the DA's office. The office, itself, needs an overhaul. That being said, the only thing that truly presents itself is the issue of a district attorney who botches high profile cases. Case after case, story after story, the one at fault becomes the DA. The APD does it's job -- I certainly can't fault the rank and file of the APD. (Management is another issue entirely, and one for another rant and another day)

On the other hand, the District Attorney's office has made a number of questionable decisions and had a questionable record in representing the people of Fulton County.

Others may point to the fact that Paul Howard ran unopposed in the last election, both in the primary as well as the general election. It's awful hard to get someone else to do the job when the guy who's there in the first place has no one to challenge him at the ballot box.

Anyway, that's what's on tap for tonight -- provided Hurricane Dennis' path of destruction and the impending retirement of Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist don't intrude.

Be there. Aloha.

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Rumors are flying fast and furious across the nation's capitol that Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist may be tendering his resignation this evening. Word is also coming in that once Air Force One lands later this afternoon at Andrews AFB near Washington, carrying President Bush back from Europe, that he'll announce the Rehnquist retirement then.

Stay tuned.

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